Baby Mama
by rhymeswithblue
Summary: Scorpius and Albus ask Lily to have a baby for them. Five times it doesn't work and the last time it does. Scorpius/Albus, Scorpius/Lily.


**note:** this story features a gay character who develops feelings for a girl. i hesitated for a long time posting this (i first started writing this in 2013) but after finding this again in my files i decided to post it after all. this is _not_ about converting someone to be straight. this is about breaking the sexuality binary. i apologize if this offends anyone.

* * *

baby mama

"We want you to have our baby."

Scorpius awaits her reaction. The bright smile gradually disappears from her face and gets replaced with a confused frown. She sets her cup of tea down onto the saucer. The sound of the two china pieces clinking rings out in the tense silence. Beside him, Albus is an absolute wreck, knees bouncing up and down, hands twisting his napkin into an anxious knot. Scorpius remains still and says nothing. _Three. Two. One…_

"I'm sorry, _what_?"

Albus groans and scratches the back of his neck, that nervous tick he's had for years. He looks over at Scorpius pleadingly.

"Okay look, Lily, it's like this," Scorpius says, moving to sit in the empty chair beside her. "Al and I have been talking about starting a family and raising a kid for a while now, you know that. And we were thinking, why ask a stranger to be an egg donor and surrogate? We'd much rather have someone whom we both know."

"And whom we both love," Albus adds and an emphatic nod. "Very much."

Scorpius continues, "Right. So, of course, the most logical person we'd go to is you."

"Me?" Lily stares at Scorpius, then across the table at her brother, then back at Scorpius.

"Plus, you're Al's sister, so you share similar genes. That way, our baby will actually be kind of really _our_ baby."

Lily just stares for a few more seconds. "I don't understand. How…how does that _work_?"

Scorpius looks back over at Albus, gesturing that it's his turn now.

"Artificial insemination," Albus replies. When Lily is still blankly staring at them, he elaborates some more. "It's a Muggle practice. Basically, they take Scorpius's sperm and, like, inject it into your womb and then bam, you're pregnant!"

Lily's face pales.

"It's really not as bad as that sounds," Scorpius quickly reassures her. "And it doesn't hurt. Well, giving birth to the baby will probably hurt, but the getting pregnant part should be fine."

"So, I won't have to actually _do_ anything with you, yeah?" Lily asks, wrinkling her nose.

"Oh, Merlin no!" he returns the same wrinkled nose expression. "We just need to go to the Muggle clinic. No funtime with Malfoy required."

She laughs and punches him on the shoulder.

"But seriously, Lily, I know we're asking a lot from you. This isn't exactly an encouraged practice in the Wizarding World. Hell, this isn't exactly a _heard of_ practice in the Wizarding World. We're asking you to suffer through nine months of pregnancy and then hand the baby right over to us after she's born. But, _please_ Lily. For us."

She's quiet for a real long time. Scorpius doesn't really expect her to agree. It's Lily Potter after all, twenty years young and wild and in her prime. Why would she ever agree to something like this? In his head, he's already thinking of who to turn to next—Rose or maybe Lucy—when Lily speaks.

"How are you so certain it's going to be a she?" Lily asks, her lips curving up to her signature smirk. But it's the gleam in her eyes that tells them everything.

"You'll do it? For real?" Al exclaims, while Scorpius hugs her tight and kisses her forehead.

"Yeah, yeah," Lily smiles. "My brother and my best friend. How could I ever say no to either of you?"

Now Al is hugging her, pulling her out of her chair and off her feet, twirling her around. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

/

They go together to the Muggle clinic. After the doctor does a brief, albeit awkward, check-up on Lily to ensure that she's fertile, he hands Scorpius a container. Scorpius looks at Lily and Al, blushes furiously, and hurries out of the room without a word. When he's done, the doctor takes the sample to give to the lab and tells them to come back in two weeks for Lily's procedure.

/

Thirteen days later, Scorpius finds himself pushing through the crowd of a pub to where Lily is sitting alone at the counter, downing a glass of rum.

"You really shouldn't drink," he reprimands, sitting down on the stool beside her. "It's bad for the—"

"—baby, yes, I know," she replies. "Relax, Scor, I'm not pregnant yet. And it's my last night of non-motherhood freedom, so let me celebrate okay?"

She tells the bartender to refill her glass and is about to throw it back again when she sees the grimace on Scorpius's face. Sighing, she slides the glass over to him. He finishes it in two gulps, in case she changes her mind and tries to get it back.

"Where's Al?" she asks.

"Got held up at work. Besides, he needs to finish everything early since he's taking tomorrow off to go to the clinic with you."

"Boo, you guys are so boring."

"We're adults, Lily."

"You're _boring_." She shakes her head. "Albus has been rubbing off on you, my friend. What happened to my devious Slytherin partner-in-crime?"

They talk for a while longer and then she drags him out to dance for a couple songs before a more attractive (and more heterosexual) man catches her eye. She starts making her way over to him when Scorpius grabs her forearm and stops her. "Lily—"

"Oh, come off it Scor, enough with the over-protectiveness already. I won't be able to hook up with another guy for the next nine months. Do you realize how much I'm sacrificing for you?"

He slowly released his hold on her arm. "Okay fine. Just don't get pregnant or anything."

"No worries, I have that scheduled for tomorrow." She winks, kisses his cheek, and then disappears into the dancing crowd.

/

It started like this:

When Lily Potter got sorted into Slytherin, all of Hogwarts (and later all of the Wizarding world) proceeded to shit their pants. All eyes were on the poor eleven year old as she walked to the Slytherin house table with her head down trying to ignore the painful silence in the Great Hall. She sat down at an empty spot near Scorpius Malfoy and he saw that her eyes were wide and confused, like what in the world had she done wrong to deserve this wretched punishment of being both a Potter and a Weasley and _not_ sorted into Gryffindor, much less Slytherin?

Third-year Scorpius slid down until he was next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, wanna know a secret? Gryffindors are overrated anyway."

She smiled and after that, they were inseparable, as in he couldn't get rid of the red-haired first year even if he tried.

But it started like this:

After the feast, Lily's brother Albus came over to the table to see if she was okay, being sorted into Slytherin and all. That's when Scorpius noticed that Albus Potter had grown taller and leaner over the summer and his voice got deeper and his features more attractive. And that's when he noticed he just thought of Albus Potter as attractive, in _that_ way. And that's when he realized that maybe he didn't have everything in his life figured out.

So it started like this:

Lily Potter got sorted into Slytherin and Scorpius befriended her and then his whole life changed.

/

Or, in other words, everything in Scorpius Malfoy's life from age thirteen on is either directly or indirectly all Lily's fault.

/

Fourteen days after their first visit to the clinic, the three of them are waiting in the lobby again. This time, the Potters are fighting.

"What do you mean you won't go in there with me?" Lily yells.

"They're going to stick the sperm into your…your…come on, Lily, I can't go in there," Al argues back.

"My vagina. You can say the word 'vagina', you know," Lily says, without dropping her volume.

Scorpius tries to quieten both of them but to no avail. Muggle patients and nurses are staring unabashedly.

"You're my sister," Al complains, "that'd be weird."

Lily crosses her arms, fuming. "So weird that you'd rather I go in there _alone_?"

"Just go with her, Al," Scorpius cries exasperatedly. "Don't make her upset, she's the one having the baby."

At that, Lily redirects her fierce gaze at Scorpius. "Will _you_ go in with me, then?"

And that's how Scorpius ends up in the room with Lily, holding her hand while she lays there with her legs propped wide open, wearing nothing but a large smock, while the doctor sure takes his sweet ass time.

"How are you feeling?" Scorpius asks, straining to keep his eyes on Lily's face and not _down there_.

She shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. "A little nervous. Okay, a lot nervous. But also excited and a tad hungover."

He laughs a little at that and then the doctor is finally coming over with this long metal probe-like thing and then—damn it, now he's looking _down there_. He quickly averts his gaze back to Lily's face, but her eyes are still shut. The doctor says something and then Lily flinches and squeezes his hand when the probe with the sperm goes inside her.

Then it's over. The doctor sends them on their way, telling them to check within a week or so.

/

A week or so passes.

Scorpius sits down with the entire Potter family as Lily adds a drop of her blood to the vial with the potion. _Three. Two. One_...

Nothing.

The liquid remains clear. Not pregnant.

Al's face falls and Ginny gives her daughter a sorry smile and Harry says something about how it usually doesn't work the first time but Scorpius only watches Lily. Lily, who just sits there staring at the vial with a distraught expression on her face.

Later, they're sitting in the grass in the backyard with Lily's head on Scorpius's shoulder, passing a bottle of firewhiskey between the two of them (because she's _still_ not pregnant, so just let her drink, damn it.)

"I really thought I was," she whispers. "I thought I could feel it."

"Feel _her_ ," he corrects.

She gives half a smile. "Next time."

He rests his head against hers. "Next time."

/

Next time doesn't work either.

/

After the fifth time they go into the clinic, Scorpius and Al and Lily wish with all their might for it to work this time. Aunt Hermione helps mix up old magic potions as well as traditional Muggle remedies that increase fertility. Lily walks around the house super careful, as if she's afraid she'll break the fragile almost-baby inside her. And she picks up the habit of sitting and standing with her legs crossed, as if she's afraid the almost-baby will fall right out of her.

But when she drops the blood into the vial, it still shows up clear.

This fifth time, she cries.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what I'm doing wrong," she sobs. "I tried so hard."

"No Lily, it's not your fault," Al soothes her. "We don't blame you at all."

"I just feel like I've let you down. I'm such a failure! Maybe something is wrong with me."

"Nothing's wrong with you. The doctor said everything was fine, remember?"

"Okay, we'll just go back there and do it again until I'm pregnant."

"No," Scorpius interrupts adamantly. Everyone turns to stare at him. "You don't have to do this anymore, Lily. I can't let you do this anymore."

She wipes the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "What are you talking about, I'm fine."

"No you're not. I know you, Lily. This is devastating you."

"One more time," she bargains. "We'll try one more time."

/

"Maybe we should ask someone else," Al suggests over dinner that night.

Scorpius looks up in shock. "You can't be serious."

"You see what it's doing to Lily. Each time the test comes out negative, she thinks of it as if the baby has died. I still remember how depressed Dominique got after her miscarriage, and that was only once. Lily went through this five times already in the span of two months."

"That's hardly the same thing as a miscarriage."

Al frowns and buries his fatigued face in his hands. "To Lily it is."

"Well, we still can't ask someone else. Lily would never agree."

"It could still be our baby though. Half you and half Lily. We'll use Lily's eggs and we'd just ask someone else to be the surrogate."

"That'd be like slapping Lily on the face and telling her, yes, she's failed."

"Then what do you say we do?!" Al yells. He's so torn up about this, it breaks Scorpius's heart. "She's my sister, Scor, my little sister. I can't…it's not even worth it. We don't even have to have a kid."

Scorpius reaches over and squeezes his hand. "Just one more time. And then we're finished."

/

The day of their next appointment at the clinic, Albus gets called into the office last minute. The work of an Auror is never finished, as the saying goes. So Scorpius apparates alone to Lily's flat to pick her up. Her place is a cozy mess as always, with a few trunks of tea leaves and coffee beans stacked in a haphazard pile in the middle of the kitchen. After graduating, Lily had gone to work with dragons with her Uncle Charlie for two years, but now she's back in London, running her own small cafe that's half for Muggles, but a secret magic entrance leads to the other half that's for wizards and magical beings. Technically, such a Muggle/magic establishment is illegal (in Wizarding law and probably Muggle law too), but this is Lily Potter. Not exactly your model lawful citizen.

"Lily?" he calls out. When he gets no response, he carefully steps around the clutter and finds her in her bedroom, sitting on top of the covers with her legs drawn up, hugging her knees. Her hair, usually so luminous and flowing down to her waist, is piled into a bun on top of her head. Her face is makeup-less; just pure, raw, vulnerable Lily Potter looking so small.

"Hey," he says, hurrying to her side, "what's wrong?"

She sets her chin on her knee. "Scared."

He pulls her into a hug and can't help but notice that she's gotten thinner and frailer. There are bags under her eyes and an absence of sparkle in her gaze.

"Okay, that's it, I changed my mind," he concludes. "Al was right. We're not doing this anymore."

"What? _NO!_ " For a second, the same fiery passion flashed across her features like it used to. "Maybe you guys can easily give up being fathers, but I still want to be an aunt. I can do this, okay?"

He sighs before nodding. "Alright. Shall we go to the clinic then?"

Just as he's about to stand up, she grabs his hand and yanks him back down onto the bed.

"Listen," she says quietly, "I was talking to Helen, you know, the waitress who works for me on the Muggle side of the cafe? And apparently her sister had done this sperm injection thing too, and Helen said it was common for it not to work."

"That's what we keep telling you, Lil. It's not your fault."

"And she also said…" Here, Lily scoots a bit closer to Scorpius on the bed and peers up at him with this strange expression. "…that the chances of getting pregnant like this were much, much lower than getting pregnant the _normal_ way."

Oh. Now, he knows what the expression on her face is. Lily's sultry eyes. The look she's given countless boys in the years Scorpius has known her, the look that makes boys succumb to her every will. She's given Scorpius this look before too, just once, back in his sixth year, but that was only to get him to finally confess that he was gay, which was something she had deduced ages ago. Frankly, he doesn't think the sultry eyes this time is a test. If it is, he doesn't know the answer.

"The normal way?" his voice quivers and he gulps. He tries to lean back slightly, but she snakes another an arm around his neck and pulls him closer until their foreheads touch. His breath hitches and suddenly he's suffocating and his mind is clouded and he doesn't know what to do.

She shuts her eyes and her eyebrows knit together. She's in as much turmoil as he is.

"No funtime with Malfoy required, remember?" He attempts a joke. Her mouth only curves up the slightest bit into a grin.

"Let's not go to the clinic today," she whispers pleadingly, almost desperately. "Let's try, just once. We won't tell anyone."

He gently puts a hand on her arm. "Why, Lily? Why do you want to do this so bad? It doesn't mean anything if you can't get pregnant."

Her eyes flash open suddenly, green like her father's, like her grandmother's. Green like Slytherin, like brilliant determination. "But I _can_ ," she argues defiantly.

Then she's attacking him, pulling at his shirt and tugging at his belt and he doesn't do anything to comply but he doesn't do anything to stop her either. The only thing he knows is that in the midst of this chaotic mess they're tumbling into headfirst, first he feels terrified and later he feels regret, but somewhere in between, he feels Lily Potter is all sorts of beautiful.

/

Because the stars are finally aligned or because the universe likes bitter comedy, when Lily drips blood from her finger into the vial this sixth time, it lights up a magnificent hue of magenta.

"Bam, I'm pregnant."

/

Scorpius and Albus visit Lily at her cafe and at her flat approximately twenty-seven times a day. They overreact about her doing any sort of labor and she gets more and more annoyed at them but they're having a baby. _They're having a baby!_

After Lily had ushered them out of her flat with about five rounds of her insisting she was fine and them asking if she was sure, they apparate back to their flat. Scorpius finishes washing up in the bathroom and walks back to their bedroom, but stops when he notices Albus standing in the empty room down the hall. They're planning on converting it into the baby's room after she's born. Albus stands with his arm crossed, looking from empty wall to empty wall as if imagining what the future nursery will look like.

"It's really happening, yeah?" Albus whispers. "We're going to be actual parents."

Scorpius doesn't say anything, just wraps his arms around Albus's shoulders from behind. They stay like that for about three whole seconds before Albus turns around and kisses Scorpius. They stumble down the hallway, their lips only breaking contact to laugh and then Albus forcefully pushes Scorpius onto the bed. And—

Well—

Scorpius tries really, really hard not to think about it. He focuses on Albus (it's Albus, he loves Albus) and presses their bodies together so close to prevent himself from thinking. But a few stray thoughts still betray him and sneak into his mind. He notices that Albus's shoulders are wider than hers and Albus's hands are rougher than hers and Albus touches everywhere in a frenzy of skin on skin while she had kept minimal contact and Albus feels scorching hot while her skin had been cool like winter. When Albus's hand wraps around his cock, he throws his head back and groans, but not before another thought leaks out and he remembers the microsecond Lily's dainty fingers had also touched him, as well as the smirk on her face when she glanced down and muttered, "Either you're really easily excited, or there's something you haven't been telling me." When Albus pulls him in for a feverish kiss, he recalls that he never got to kiss her.

It's stupid. Utterly, unbelievably stupid.

But Scorpius can't change the fact that he was thinking of Lily Potter while fucking her brother. When did his life become a screwed-up anti-hero story?

/

"Why are you acting so weird?" Lily asks. He has been trying to avoid her this past week and when he has to be in the same room with her, he flinches if she as much as looks at him.

"I think I'm sick," he answers, which really isn't a lie.

/

A month later, Lily Potter is moving in with Albus and Scorpius. _Lily Potter is moving in with Albus and Scorpius._

It was Al's idea. The pinnacle of great ideas, really.

Scorpius (begrudgingly) shows her to the room at the end of the hall where there is now a bed and nightstand. "We're planning on making this the baby's nursery later," he explains.

Lily grins. "It's perfect."

She settles in and for the next seven months, she is going to live right here under the same roof as Scorpius and he'll probably see her every morning when they leave for work and then every night when they come home again, all so he and Albus can better take care of her and the growing baby inside of her, the growing baby that's _his_ , in the most encompassing definition of that word. A permanent reminder of the illicit conception.

Like she said, perfect.

/

They go for one final checkup at the Muggle clinic. Just the two of them, Scorpius and Lily, because Albus is busy again (as always.)

The doctor is saying something about healthy vital signs and normal growth or something, but the minute he sees the small bluish shape on the ultrasound screen, Scorpius stops listening. The shape is so small, more of a large bean than a fetus, but there she is. Their baby girl.

Lily squeezes his hand and she's smiling more radiant that he's ever seen.

/

They all agreed to keep this pregnancy quiet. The last thing anyone wants is for the _Prophet_ to pick up on this story and tattle to the world about how the Potters are using strange Muggle technology to get Lily pregnant with her brother's child. They'd make it a blasphemous incest scandal extravaganza headliner by morning. Harry and Hermione pull a few strings to hire a special midwife to visit Lily at the flat for check-ups instead of Lily going to the hospital.

Of course, that also means Lily, after the first trimester, has to hide herself and her pregnant belly from the public eye. Which means she spends all her free time at home and Scorpius can't stand to let her be alone for too long and Albus is never around anymore so, by process of elimination, Scorpius ends up spending the majority of everyday accompanying his best friend. Which just does _wonders_ to help his current affliction, you know?

"We're gonna have a really pretty baby," she says randomly one afternoon. Scorpius is reading a book on baby care and she's drinking tea, setting the cup on her pregnant belly as if that were the only real purpose to getting pregnant: having a convenient table attached to your body. "My beauty, your ruggedness. This one's gonna be a heartbreaker."

He smiles because yeah, how can Lily's daughter be anything but? His mind drifts into the poetic-romantic, with sappy thoughts that Lily would ridicule him with forever if she ever found out. And then a horrible thought strikes him. "Oh no. What if the baby is a ginger?!"

Lily throws her head back and laughs.

/

He'll get over this, right?

/

By Christmas, Lily is already six months along and anywhere she goes, her protruding baby bump had already arrived five minutes prior.

They floo over to the Borrow for holiday dinner. It's only the extended Weasley family, but that's enough people to fill three tables and warrant an expansion charm on the inside of the house. There are children running everywhere and too many chefs in the kitchen and a thousand different conversations taking place at once. It's the exact kind of cozy chaos Scorpius has come to associate with Christmas.

He chats with Rose and Hugo for a while and then when he turns around, Lily is nowhere to be seen, which is quite a feat because has he mentioned how _huge_ she is?

As he maneuvers through the crowd, he finally makes out her voice from the kitchen.

"It's a wonderful thing you're doing, Lily," her Aunt Angelina says. "I would never be able to do that."

Scorpius hovers by the doorway of the kitchen when he overhears the conversation.

"It's just giving birth to a kid," Lily replies offhandedly. "You had Fred and Roxy."

"No, not that. I meant I would never be able to have a baby and then just give it away."

There's a pause before Lily responds again. "It's not like I won't ever see her again. I'll still be a part of her life."

"And she'll call you Auntie. Not Mum."

It strikes Scorpius as odd that Aunt Angelina would make a comment like this. It's not like they're forcing Lily to do anything. It's not like she hasn't always been fully aware of what this entails and what the outcome will be. It's not like she showed any signs of _not_ wanting to be pregnant, not with that stunt she pulled for Attempt #6. She had obviously been willing to get pregnant _whatever it takes_ so why would Aunt Angelina say that?

There's a pause from Lily. There's a really long pause.

/

Albus gets called in to work on December 31.

"New Year's Eve!" Lily cries as he scrambles around the flat to grab his things. "You're not going anywhere, you're staying here with us!"

"You think I want to go?" Albus shouts back. "But there's an emergency. Some Neo-Death Eater cult we've been keeping track of are planning some kind of insurrection tonight at midnight. We have to stop them."

"But—"

"I'm sorry, Lily."

"Don't go, just this once. Please. It's New Year's Eve."

Albus kisses his sister's forehead, then leans down to kiss her belly, then kisses Scorpius before hurrying to the fireplace. "I'll try my best to be back before midnight, okay? But no promises. Don't wait up." He tosses some floo into the fireplace. He turns around to look at Lily, who's on the verge of tears, one last time. "I protect people. That's my job. I want to keep you and the baby from any harm. I just want you to be safe."

Then he says 'The Ministry' and steps into the green flames.

Lily really does start crying and Scorpius puts his arm around her. She blames it on the pregnancy hormones, but Scorpius is starting to think that's not the only reason she's crying so much these days. The same reason that Scorpius goes to sleep in an empty bed and wakes up in an empty bed still, far too many times a week.

She wraps her arms around the baby inside her. "Is this what safe feels like?"

/

 _Three. Two. One…_ Happy New Year. Albus didn't make it back. Above and below, they can hear the neighbors' festivities as they bring in the New Year. Here, the flat has never seemed so big, so empty, so quiet. If the first hours of the year were any determinant of the next 365 days…what a desolate thought indeed.

"Happy New Year, baby girl," Lily softly mutters.

Scorpius leans down to kiss her temple, but when he pulls away, she turns her head and stands on the tip of her toes to kiss him fully on the mouth. The noise he makes in reaction is part shock, part reluctant pleasure, and wholly unattractive sounding.

She only smiles innocently and walks back to her room. "Cheers," she calls over her shoulder.

/

Merlin, he can't get over this.

/

The Neo-Death Eaters case was a complete success on the Aurors' part, crisis averted, et cetera. To reward his bravery and leadership, Albus Potter is promoted to Head Auror. It leads to another fight at home.

"Why aren't you happy for me, Scor? It's a great honor."

"Honor my ass. You're already hardly around anymore, Al. What's going to happen once you're Head?"

"It's better pay to better raise the baby."

"You know what would be better for the baby? _For her dad to be there._ "

Or, at least that's how the fight would have gone, if Albus ever came home long enough for any words to be exchanged at all.

/

"Gertrude?"

"Hell no."

"Persephone? Or Proserpina, if you prefer."

"No, no."

"Magdalena?"

" _No_. Is there like an heirloom Malfoy Book of Shitty Baby Names or something?"

"…that's hurtful, Lily."

"I like Marcy."

"We're not naming the baby Marcy."

/

They end up naming the baby Marcy.

/

Onto month nine and Lily is so gargantuan, she practically has her own force of gravity. The midwife has her on bed-rest and the entire Potter-Weasley-Malfoy family is on edge waiting for the Patronus or floo call to alert them of the birth.

Albus finally comes home close to 10 o' clock at night. He tiredly rubs his eyes and sits down at the table, hanging his Auror cloak behind him. He doesn't notice the disdainful look on Scorpius's face as he heats up the leftovers and sends it over to Albus with a flick of his wand.

"How's Lily?" Al asks, not even looking at Scorpius. "She didn't have the baby already, did she?"

Scorpius manages half a chuckle before he realizes that he isn't sure if Al is joking.

"Did you know that I spent more time with Lily today than I have spent with you the past two weeks put together?"

"Today's Saturday, you spent all day with her…" Al stopped talking and put down his fork when he met Scorpius's gaze. "What's wrong?"

"Do you even care anymore?"

"Scorpius, what are you going on about?"

From the other room, Scorpius hears Lily calling out to him. He sighs and shakes his head sadly at the man in front of him, the man he once swore he loved.

"I think we were wrong," he says remorsefully. "We weren't ready to have a child yet."

He turns on his heel and stalks off to Lily's room. She's lying on her back with Marcy forming a mountain under the sheets. She opens her mouth to ask for water or another pillow or something, but stops short when she sees how tense Scorpius is. "What did my idiot brother do this time?" she asks.

He shakes his head and runs his finger through his hair in frustration. "It's not worth it. People change and we rushed into it way too fast and we dragged you down with us."

"…Scorpius, you're scaring me."

And he just nods because he's scared shitless too.

/

As they teetered on the brink of falling apart, tragedy hit on a Thursday. Al storms home at half past six, an absurdly early hour to be departing work as the Head Auror. He storms into their flat, just as Scorpius and Lily are laughing at an inside joke. He's in the kitchen making dinner while she sits at the table. Both turn at Al's unexpected entrance.

"So the Muggle Doctor called me today," Al says.

Scorpius and Lily share a confused look. "And?"

"He wanted to check up on Lily, make sure she's doing fine, asking if she's had the baby yet. It was all fine until he said something that just wasn't quite right. He said 'I'm so glad it worked out for you guys. _Fifth time's the charm_.' He said fifth."

Scorpius drops the soup ladle he was holding. Lily grips the edge of the table with one hand and places the other over Marcy. They never thought the truth would come to light.

"I told him he was mistaken," Al continues. " _Sixth_ time's the charm. Because the fifth time didn't work. But he said you guys never came back a sixth time. So can someone please explain to me how Lily is pregnant if you never went back the sixth time?"

Before Scorpius could speak, Lily wobbles to her feet and shuffles towards her brother. "It was completely my idea and I'm sorry but Helen told me the normal way works better and I was scared and I didn't want to fail again and I'm sorry."

"The normal way?" Al asks. He stares brokenheartedly between the two and then backs out of the flat.

"Al, wait!" Scorpius calls out.

But Al keeps going until he's opened the door and halfway out in the hallway. "This is so fucked up."

Just as Scorpius is about to chase after him, Lily gasps, clutching her belly with both hands.

/

Marcy Malfoy-Potter is born on a Thursday.

And even as their extended family the size of a small village all piled in besides Lily's bed and the baby's cot, the big crowd could not mask the absence of the one man who was supposed to be here.

Lily ends up confessing everything to her parents and it is Ginny who approaches the forlorn Scorpius in the corner of the room. "Go to him. Go fix things."

He doesn't think fixing is possible at this point.

/

He finds Albus at the Leaky Cauldron, hunched over at the bar. He sits down beside him and doesn't say anything for a really long time. Finally, Al raises his head, staring straight ahead and not at him.

"You had sex with my sister."

"Yes."

"I don't think I can forgive you for that."

"I know."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too."

The stale air holds a distinct sense of finality. Scorpius wonders if things would have been different if they never decided to have a baby, or if Helen had never planted that damn idea into Lily's head. But perhaps, no matter what had happened, they would still be here in the Leaky Cauldron having this conversation, not looking at each other, crumbling apart.

"So what now?"

"Lily and I can raise the baby. You don't have to be her dad, if you don't want…"

"I don't think I deserve to be a father."

"Of course you do. Maybe not now. Definitely someday."

Al manages a small smile. "You don't think Marcy will grow up with any emotional trauma after all of this, do you?"

"She's a Malfoy, Potter, and a Weasley. She'll be just fine."

/

When he returns to the hospital, all the family members had left except for James Potter. The oldest Potter sits in an armchair while Lily and Marcy sleep peacefully. Scorpius doesn't think James noticed him until James speaks up. "So Malfoy, you like girls now?"

Scorpius coughs in surprise at the sharp remark. "What?"

"Two out of three so far," James says, then gives a smug smirk. "You gonna go after me next?"

"It's not like that…" Scorpius feels his cheeks flush with embarrassment. James knows. Merlin knows who else in the family is aware he and Lily did the dirty. "I don't…"

James laughs and stands from the chair, walking over to give Scorpius a hard clap on the back. "Relax, kid. I'm just joking. There's nothing wrong with being gay and there's nothing wrong with being bi and there's nothing wrong with not knowing what the hell you are."

With a wink, James walks out the door and down the hall. Scorpius turns back to the small cradle where Marcy is sleeping. Her tiny hands clutch the quilt, her adorable nose pink and soft. He leans down and kisses her forehead.

Beautiful Marcy. Beautiful, ginger Marcy.

/

It ends like this:

Scorpius and Albus ask Lily to have a baby for them. Five times it doesn't work and the last time it does. That's when he notices that she is passionate and unstoppable and so, so beautiful. And that's when he notices that he just thought of Lily Potter as beautiful, in _that_ way. And that's when he realized maybe he still has nothing figured out.

/

Or, in other words, everything in Scorpius Malfoy's life from age twenty-four on is still either directly or indirectly all Lily's fault.

* * *

thanks for reading and thanks for sticking with me if you're a long-time follower. i do have a multichapter divergent fic in the works, but who knows when i'll get that out lol. in the meantime, check out my new daily poetry blog **versegram** on tumblr.


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